The Foreign Service Institute will soon have an Immersive Virtual Environment to train our diplomats. The solicitation calls it a “Holodeck Projection Solution” and it is an intended addition to the school’s Innovation Lab.

Really, something like this?

In early 2014, Wired reported that the Army Contracting Command issued a Sources Sought notice for companies interested in demonstrating “mature technologies” for military training. The report noted that Northrop Grumman thinks its Virtual Immersive Portable Environment (VIPE) Holodeck just may be the answer. The VIPE Holodeck 360 degree virtual training system provides users with a high-fidelity immersive environment with a variety of mission-centric applications, including simulation and training, mission rehearsal and data visualization. The VIPE Holodeck can support live, virtual and constructive simulation and training exercises including team training, cultural and language training and support for ground, air and remote platform training.

The U.S. Army required white paper and demo from interested companies with the requirement spelled out here.

The announcement said that the Army lacked the capability to rapidly assess, adapt and replicate the complex nature of the operational environment and applicable Joint, Interagency, International, Multinational (JIIM) enablers to conduct realistic training and develop adaptive Leaders at Home Station. Associated Areas of interest for NIE 15.1 Include:

Provide an Augmented Reality (AR) capability that can be utilized by individual Soldiers or Small units (Company & below) to integrate (simulated) Joint and other combined arms enablers (e.g., indirect/FA fires, aerial delivery of supplies, CAS) during live training events, (with the ability to support multi-echelon training at Home Station when required).

It looks like, the U.S. Army was actually looking not only into the capability gaps, it also knows what that immersive virtual environment will be used for.

We can’t say the same for the State/FSI solicitation for a holodeck.

FSI will have an Immersive Virtual Environment to train our diplomats but it does not say what kind of immersive training it will be used for. It requires vendor to “provide any necessary training” but does not identify what training content is required. Is this for an immersive congressional hearing environment? Language training? Death notification simulations for non-consular officers working as duty officers? Will our diplomats be doing intergalactic diplomatic negotiations on alien planets? The solicitation does not say. What’s next? A follow-up solicitation for vendors to write virtual environment simulations for diplomats? A solicitation for the script for those simulations?

Here’s a clip from The Void, a company that says “you will walk into new dimensions and experience worlds without limits. From fighting intergalactic wars on alien planets, to casting spells in the darkest of dungeons, THE VOID presents the future of entertainment. Only limited by imagination, our advanced Virtual-Reality technologies allow you to see, move, and feel our digital worlds in a completely immersive and realistic way.”

The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the Federal Government’s primary training institution for officers and support personnel of the U.S. foreign affairs community, preparing American diplomats and other professionals to advance U.S. foreign affairs interests overseas and in Washington. At the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center (NFATC), the FSI provides more than 450 courses, including some 70 foreign languages, to more than 50,000 enrollees a year from the State Department and more than 40 other government agencies and the military service branches.

The NFATC is seeking to have an Immersive Virtual Environment display capability added to its Innovation Lab classroom.

Holodeck Projection Solution

FSI has a space that has three walls arranged in a U-shape with 90° angles between each wall. Each wall is approximately 15ft long by 8ft in height. The vendor will provide a solution to project images on three walls (surfaces) in order to produce an immersive space for training.

• The source computer must have the ability to have a WiFi network connection, run on latest version of its operating system, and be capable of outputting four (4) video feeds each 1920×1080 or greater; three for the walls/surfaces and one for local monitoring.

• Video processing must…

* Accommodate to the angles in the U shape layout and adjust for the perspective change (i.e. a “wrapped” image). The system must display images from the perspective of a viewer standing in the center of the U as they look around them.

* Be able to show content independently and in a variety of combinations. (i.e. a separate image on each surface simultaneously; two images split between the three surfaces; and other combinations.)

• An audio solution for the immersive space driven from the controlling PC.

• The walls painted or finished with a suitable projection surface.

• Projectors placed so as to minimize shadows from people standing in the immersive environment.

•Projectors with a native resolution of 1920×1080 or greater and a contrast ratio of 2000 to 1 or greater.